While this is of immediate interest only to those of us who listen to classical, Naxos's announcement of a service which goes beyond 16 bit 44k to offer up to 24/96 is a bit of a milestone in streaming terms, as is the clever functionality which will adjust the resolution to ensure that there are no blips in the stream. So, for those of us with fast broadband, we'll get 24/96, bit those with poorer service will automatically have the quality pulled back to ensure continuity. Clever stuff!
The service - like Qobuz but not Tidal - will offer access to booklets, libretti etc. I believe the UK price will be £11.95 per month. We'll have to see how wide a range of labels the service offers, but it certainly looks interesting.
Paul
Posted on: 07 January 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Yuek, adaptive services.. Keep clear... You won't know what you are getting ... These will be, if I understand not resampled streams, but effectively a lossy stream with variable amounts of lossiness depending on your throughput... Certainly can't see how the transport will be bit perfect .
Simon
Posted on: 08 January 2015 by Goon525
Like some others here, I'm so used to assuming that Simon knows of what he speaks, that I accepted his crushing dismissal of adaptive services almost without a thought. And yet I wonder....is past performance necessarily an indicator of the future? A service which starts off at say 192/24 and then, because of broadband restrictions, gets pegged back to 96/24 (or something like it) might technically be 'adaptive', but might it not still be usefully better than CD, or, um, 320k Spotify? Just wondering.
Posted on: 08 January 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Paul - please don't dismiss on the basis of what I say. I should have said I would avoid - but clearly you should evaluate.
But my rationale is that unless the signal is down sampled carefully into different bandwidth defined bit streams, then the adaptive bandwidth will be lossy in terms of the encoded sound - and therefore this is not what I want from any hi fidelity streaming service.
Simon
